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{{Short description|1981 book by Kazimierz Moczarski}}
{{Infobox book
<!-- |italic title = (see above) -->
| name             = Conversations with an Executioner
| image            = Conversations with an Executioner (Moczarski).jpg
| caption          = 
| title_orig       = Rozmowy z katem
| orig_lang_code   = pl
| title_working    = 
| translator       = 
| author           = [[Kazimierz Moczarski]]
| country          = United States
| language         = English
| subject          = The Holocaust
| genre            = History
| publisher        = [[Prentice-Hall]]
| publisher2       = 
| pub_date         = First Edition 1981
| pages            = 282
| awards           = 
| isbn             = 0131719181
| oclc             = 7277353
| dewey            = 
| congress         = 
}}
'''''Conversations with an Executioner''''' ({{lang-pl|Rozmowy z katem}}) is a book by [[Kazimierz Moczarski]], a Polish writer and journalist, officer of the [[Polish Home Army]] who was active in the [[Polish resistance movement in World War II|anti-Nazi resistance]] during World War II. On 11 August 1945, he was captured and imprisoned in a maximum-security prison by the notorious [[Ministry of Public Security (Poland)|UB secret police]] [[History of Poland (1945–1989)#Stalinist era (1948–1956)|under Stalinism]]. For a time, he shared the same cell with the [[Nazi]] [[war criminal]] [[Jürgen Stroop]], who was soon to be executed. They engaged in a series of conversations. The book is a retelling of those interviews.<ref name="Podgórski/scribd">Andrzej Szczypiorski (1977), [https://www.scribd.com/doc/80572900/70230112-Moczarski-Kazimierz-Rozmowy-z-Katem  Moczarski Kazimierz, ''Rozmowy z katem''] text with ''Notes'' and ''Biography'' by Andrzej Krzysztof Kunert (PDF 1.86 MB, available from Scribd.com). Retrieved {{nowrap|August 23, 2014.}} {{in lang|pl}}</ref>

Moczarski spent four years on death row (1952–1956), incarcerated as an alleged [[enemy of the state]]. He was tried three times while in prison as an anticommunist, and pardoned eleven years later, during the anti-Stalinist [[Polish October]].<ref name="SC-MK">Stéphane Courtois, Mark Kramer, [https://books.google.com/books?id=H1jsgYCoRioC&dq=%22Roman+Romkowski%22&pg=PA378  ''Livre noir du Communisme: crimes, terreur, répression''.] The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression, ''[[Harvard University Press]]'', 1999, 858 pages. {{ISBN|0-674-07608-7}}. Pages 377–378.</ref> His manuscript about Stroop, written in secrecy from 1956,<ref name="Podgórski/scribd"/> was published in monthly installments by the magazine [[Odra (magazine)|''Odra'']] in 1972–1974, followed by a shortened book version released in 1977. The full text without [[Censorship in the Polish People's Republic|communist censorship]] was published in 1992 after the collapse of the Soviet bloc, by the [[Polish Scientific Publishers PWN]]. Moczarski did not witness the publication of his book. He died on 27 September 1975 in Warsaw, weakened by the years of savage physical torture endured during his police interrogations.<ref name="SC-MK"/>

==Background==
[[File:Stroop Report - Warsaw Ghetto Uprising 03.jpg|thumb|left|Jürgen Stroop (center, in a [[M43 field cap|field cap]]) with his men observe the burning of [[Warsaw Ghetto]] during the suppression of the [[Warsaw Ghetto uprising]], 1943]]
[[Image:Stroop-1951v.jpg|thumb|upright|Stroop before a Polish court in 1951]]
''[[SS-Gruppenführer]]'' [[Jürgen Stroop]] was taken prisoner by the Allies in Germany under a false identity. He was tried by the [[Dachau trials|U.S. Military Tribunal at Dachau]] on unrelated charges. In late May 1947, Stroop was handed over for retrial to the People's Republic of Poland for the suppression of the [[Warsaw Ghetto Uprising]] and the methodical destruction of [[Warsaw Ghetto|the ghetto]]. His crimes resulted in the death of over 50,000 people. He was kept in jail for four years before the Criminal District Court in Warsaw put him on trial on July 18, 1951, for the war crimes committed in Poland. Stroop was executed on 6 March 1952, arrogant and unrepentant until the very end.<ref>Moczarski (1981), page 266.</ref>

Moczarski spent nine months (or 255 days) with Stroop, locked in his cell from March 2, 1949, until November 11, 1949.<ref name="Podgórski/scribd"/> The Stalinists falsely accused Moczarski of being a Nazi, which in turn allowed Stroop to relax in his presence, his every word a form of confession with nothing held back. Moczarski himself was sentenced to death on November 18, 1952.<ref name="Podgórski/scribd"/> The following October, his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment, but he was not informed about the change. In December 1956, at the end of Stalinist terror in Poland, he was retried for the last time, pronounced innocent, and rehabilitated. The courts declared that the charges against him were utterly falsified by [[Ministry of Public Security (Poland)|the ministry]] under [[Roman Romkowski]] who ordered his brutal treatment.<ref name="SC-MK"/> Some 15 years after his torturous ordeal had ended, Moczarski began writing his book in 1971 using notes collected since 1956 and published parts of it soon thereafter. Some of his Polish followers asked how he could remember it so well. It was due to his heightened state of alertness that only death row could bring, he said. In the ''Annex'' to his book Moczarski explained that also Stroop, seemingly unable to remember any Polish word learned a day earlier, was happy to recite every single line from his reports to Hitler.<ref name="Podgórski/scribd"/>

==Conversations==
[[File:K moczarski.jpg|thumb|140px|[[Kazimierz Moczarski]], {{circa}} 1956]]
The uncut Polish edition of the book by Moczarski is preceded by a ''Foreword'' written by [[Andrzej Szczypiorski]] and followed by his Biography and Glossary of German names and terms by [[Andrzej Krzysztof Kunert]]. The book is composed of 26 chapters each with a separate title and structured like a traditional biography beginning with the description of their first meeting in prison, and then continuing in a chronological order from the subject's birth until his execution, with additional themes woven into the central story.<ref name="Podgórski/scribd"/> Moczarski and Stroop were not alone in the cell. The third inmate was {{lang|de|[[SS-Untersturmführer]]}} Gustav Schielke from the [[Waffen-SS]] originally from [[Hanover]]. All three slept on narrow mattresses placed on the floor for the night. There was a retractable wall bed in the cell, which none of them used out of respect for the others.<ref name="Podgórski/scribd"/>

Stroop derived considerable pleasure from talking, giving him a new focus and a reason to live, especially due to Moczarski's genuine interest in every detail of his story. Stroop described the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto after the ghetto uprising in minute detail, eager to mention the foreign ''[[Hilfswilliger]]'' ("willing helpers") in the death of over 50,000 [[Polish Jews]]: "They did not understand Polish," he said, "and therefore, were unable to communicate with the people of Warsaw. This was exactly what we wanted. We called them [[Trawniki men]]." Moczarski translated his interior monologues in the first person, and did not dramatize any of the admittedly irrational parts.<ref name="Podgórski/scribd"/>

The book, written in Polish and published as {{lang|pl|Rozmowy z katem}} in 1978 by {{lang|pl|[[Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy]]}}, was translated to English and published in 1981 by [[Prentice-Hall]] as ''Conversations with an Executioner''. Prominent translations include German, as {{lang|de|Gespräche mit dem Henker}}, published by ''Droste'', Düsseldorf, in 1978; French, as {{lang|fr|Entretiens avec le bourreau}} by ''Gallimard'', Paris, in 1979; Hebrew, as {{lang|he|Śiḥot ʻim talyan}} by Loḥame ha-Geṭaʼot, Tel Aviv, in 1979–80; Czech, as {{lang|cs|Rozhovory s katem}} by ''Jota'', Brno, in 2007; and Ukrainian, as {{lang|uk-Latn|Besìdi z katom}} by Černìvcì in 2009, among several others.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.worldcat.org/search?q=au%3AMoczarski%2C+Kazimierz%2C&qt=hot_author | title=Moczarski, Kazimierz | publisher=WorldCat library catalog | work=Search results (about 36: All Formats) | accessdate=26 August 2014 | author=WorldCat | pages=1/3}}</ref>

From May 2024, a manuscript of the book is presented at a [[permanent exhibition in the Palace of the Commonwealth]] in Warsaw.<ref>{{cite web |url= https://bn.org.pl/en/news/5313-palace-of-the-commonwealth-open-to-visitors.html |title= Palace of the Commonwealth open to visitors |date= 2024-05-28 |publisher= National Library of Poland |access-date= 2024-06-11}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |editor-first1=Tomasz |editor-last1= Makowski | editor-link1=Tomasz Makowski (librarian) | editor-first2= Patryk| editor-last2 = Sapała |date=2024 |publication-place=Warsaw |publisher= National Library of Poland|title=The Palace of the Commonwealth. Three times opened. Treasures from the National Library of Poland at the Palace of the Commonwealth |page=196}}</ref>

==In popular culture==
* The ''Rozmowy z katem'' (''Conversations with an Executioner'') based on Kazimierz Moczarski's memoir have been made into a Polish [[television film]] in 2006. Stroop is played by the actor [[Piotr Fronczewski]]. The film received three awards at the 2007 ''Krajowy Festiwal Teatru Polskiego Radia i Teatru TV "Dwa Teatry"''.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.filmpolski.pl/fp/index.php?film=525025 | title=Rozmowy z katem | publisher=FilmPolski.pl | work=Spektakl telewizyjny | date=16 April 2007 | accessdate=25 August 2014}}</ref>
* In 2007, filmmaker Maciej Englert created a DVD documentary entitled ''"Conversations With An Executioner"'' based on Moczarski's book.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20121018130253/http://www.blockbuster.com/browse/catalog/movieDetails/399422  Movie Details by Blockbuster.com (2007).] Internet Archive.</ref>
* On April 18, 2012, [[Philip Boehm]]'s stage adaptation of Moczarski's ''Conversations with.an Executioner'' premiered at the Upstream Theater in [[St. Louis, Missouri]].<ref>{{cite web|last=Bretz |first=Mark |url=http://www.laduenews.com/diversions/arts-entertainment/conversations-with-an-executioner-theater-review/article_ce29d34a-896e-11e1-844d-001a4bcf6878.html |title="Ladue News" April 18, 2012 |publisher=Laduenews.com |date=2012-04-18 |accessdate=2013-09-04}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |author=Dennis Brown |url=http://www.riverfronttimes.com/2012-04-26/culture/conversations-with-an-executioner-upstream-theater-j-uuml-rgen-stroop-philip-boehm/full/ |title="Riverfront Times" April 19, 2012 |publisher=Riverfronttimes.com |date=2012-04-19 |accessdate=2013-09-04 |archive-date=2015-01-09 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150109002105/http://www.riverfronttimes.com/2012-04-26/culture/conversations-with-an-executioner-upstream-theater-j-uuml-rgen-stroop-philip-boehm/full/ |url-status=dead }}</ref>

==Notes==
{{Reflist}}

==References==
* {{cite book | last = Friedman | first = Towiah | title = The Trial Against SS-general Jürgen Stroop in Warsaw, Poland | year = 1986 | publisher = Institute of Documentation in Israel for the Investigation of Nazi War Crimes }}
* {{cite book | last = Moczarski | first = Kazimierz | authorlink = Kazimierz Moczarski |author2=Mariana Fitzpatrick |author3=Jürgen Stroop | title = Conversations With an Executioner | year = 1981 | publisher = Prentice-Hall| isbn = 0-13-171918-1|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/conversationswit0000mocz}}
* {{cite book | last = Moczarski | first = Kazimierz | authorlink = Kazimierz Moczarski | title = Zapiski | publisher = Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy | year = 1990 | isbn = 83-06-01861-3}}
* {{cite book | last = Stroop | first = Jürgen | authorlink = Jürgen Stroop | title = The Stroop Report: The Jewish Quarter of Warsaw Is No More! | year = 1979 | publisher = Pantheon Books | isbn = 0-394-50443-7 | url-access = registration | url = https://archive.org/details/stroopreportj00stro }}



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[[Category:1977 non-fiction books]]
[[Category:Polish-language books]]
[[Category:Books of interviews]]
[[Category:Oral history books]]
[[Category:History books about the Holocaust]]
[[Category:Warsaw Ghetto Uprising]]
[[Category:Works originally published in Polish magazines]]
[[Category:Polish Scientific Publishers PWN books]]
[[Category:Works about Warsaw Ghetto]]